and she wore it like a trainwreck
by Cella N
Summary: It's very depressing, this story that we have. ISHIDA. SAKURA. Wouldn't have been better if it had fallen from the sky.


**A/N:** All **Jules**'s fault. Forever. The x-over fic from hell. Written before this place even had x-overs. Beware of angst.

**and she wore it like a trainwreck**

[1. outlandish landing]

"Oh. I didn't think guys could sew that well," she says, setting down the teacup in front of him before taking a seat.

"A common misconception," he answers, blithe. He cuts the thread with a small pair of scissors he always carries around—because Ishida Uryuu is all sorts of prepared—and holds out the shirt for his own inspection. Once satisfied with the results, he hands it to her. "I added a flower, I hope you don't mind," he says, adjusting the collar of his shirt and looking around as if he's a caged animal. Or well. One that suddenly got pushed out of Hueco Mundo in the middle of a battle straight into a place called 'Konoha'. Full of ninjas. The worst part wasn't even that. The worst part was the landing—an unceremonious crash straight into the pink-haired girl in front of him; at the whole falling from the heaven thing, she said nothing, but somehow in the crash, she not only became his saviour—mending bones and closing wounds in only minutes—but he'd sadly managed to rip her shirt somehow.

And now, in her kitchen, they analyse the situation as if it's not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to them. Well hey, she's a ninja, and he fights ghosts. They've dealt with worse. Only now she's looking at him as if she doesn't know what to do with him, and he has the sudden impression that he's become her charge, of sorts. He feels like a child, which is repulsing, and angering. And hence, the added flower to her shirt. He just wants proof—she's just another girl. Show her a bauble, and she brightens up instantly.

Only this one, despite the girly hair colour, takes the shirt back and raises a sceptical eyebrow. "Not really fierce, is this?" she says, laying the shirt on her lap and picking up her teacup again. "Lucky I've spare ones," she murmurs, more to herself than to him, but it still makes him feel offended, and angry. "Now, let's go over this again. You said you were a Quincy..."

[2. brave new world]

It takes the girl—Haruno-san, that is how he calls her, when he actually defers from the generic 'you'--five days to find him a place to stay. He hates being called 'civilian' by others, and having to hang the Quincy outfit in the closet. The clothing style of this world, era, time, whatever it is, is unfashionable, impractical, and they use _buttons_. He doesn't sleep at night, and can't stomach the food, and it isn't until she barges into his place uninvited that he realises that no, he's not alone in the middle of nowhere.

"You're too young to be a medic," he tells her, but opens his mouth and says 'ah' when she so instructs him. Maybe it's instinctual, engrained in his brain since youth—always listen to the doctor.

"Maybe in your world," she answers, then writes out a very strict diet of 'pig out as much as you want', which she says must be started on immediately. So she drags him out to lunch, and tells him he might as well get to know the place. The unspoken 'just in case' lingers in the air between them, and he drowns it out by drinking all the tea she orders.

The food isn't bad, but the conversation he could do without. She reminds him, now and then, of a girl he knows. She's pretty, and shies away from his gaze only sometimes when it's too intense, but he does it unintentionally; she doesn't smile a lot, and gives many instructions, and he's sure by now that the leader--'Hokage'--of the place has enlisted her as his guardian. The conversation could be better.

She doesn't ask him about his world, or why he landed on top of her out of nowhere. Just as well—he's not sure he remembers anything except who he is, who he was, and why he was fighting. He notices she's wearing the shirt he fixed for her, and decides that she deserves a second chance. He doesn't even know yet how many chances she's willing to give him.

[3. the ghost of yesterdays]

It takes him a month in the place to realise he's starting to forget.

He doesn't make friends, because such is his nature. He finds a job with a seamstress, and the women of the village all adore him—some more than others. He still despises being a civilian, and whenever there's a full moon, he sneaks into the forest, Quincy outfit on, and trains. Sometimes, she finds him, and stands beside a tree until he's finished. Sometimes, he's found by someone else, not as forgiving—it's a miracle that the Hokage still hasn't thrown him in jail for it by now. This world has enough tragedies, it doesn't need the added Hollows.

On his one-month anniversary, he celebrates. It's been a week since he last saw Haruno-san, and he still hasn't made any friends. He remembers who he was, and each memory is precious. That night, he drinks sake for the first time, and carves names into the wall in his bedroom.

_Kurosaki Ichigo  
Kuchiki Rukia  
Inoue Orihime  
Yasutora Chad  
Abarai Renji  
Ishida Ryuuken  
Ishida Souken_

He drinks to them, and that's how she finds him, on the floor of his bedroom. Her clothes reek of blood, and her face is gaunt and drawn; she's leaning on his window-sill, and smiling a bleak smile.

"I wanted to see if you were still here," she tells him.

He stands up, and pulls her inside his apartment. "I don't know that myself."

[4. we used to be great]

"I was dying," he tells her the next morning, when they're both done nursing hangovers. "We'd won the war, but I was dying. Orihime...after closing the Hougyuku, she didn't have those powers anymore. I was dying."

"But you're alive now," she tells him.

"I know she did this. I don't know how, but I know she opened the portal, and then I was here. It was as if she wanted me to live, and sent me to the only place I could have," he says, pushing his glasses further up his nose again.

"How much did you love her?" she asks, her words ring sharply in the kitchen.

"If I could see her again, I'd tell you," he answers, hiding the truth, burying it under layers and layers. And she gets it.

"My teammates are all gone," she tells him. "Not dead, but just...out of reach. One ran away from the village. The other one's still following him. Our leader doesn't even know my name." She wraps her hands around her teacup. "Sometimes it's not much better even when you can see them. They just remind you of how hard it will hurt when you lose them again."

He looks at her silently, eyes lingering on the curve of her neck, that spot of skin just above the neckline of his shirt—her clothes are in the bin, too ruined to be saved; it was the shirt with the flower on it that she'd worn on that mission. It makes him smile a bit, and want to stop staring at her neck any longer. She can look so vulnerable, for all her strength. He looks away.

"I used to be powerful, in my world," he says. "All I am here is a sewer."

She looks at him, but he doesn't catch it. "You're not a sewer," she answers, full of conviction. "You're a Quincy." For a moment, he believes in her conviction so much that he can feel the arrows under his fingertips again.

[5. we could be better]

She finds him training with Tenten, two weeks later, and laughs at it. He has no chakra control, he's not adapted yet. He fights like a baby, but he shoots his arrows like a trained killer. The combination makes her keep watching. She takes him with him to the hospital, and asks him if he wants to help. He's skilled with a needle, and they've a whole ward in need of a new doctor. She tells him there are some patients that medic-nin can't treat, like children and civilians.

He's grateful for her offers. She helps him carry the books home, and listens to him wonder if his father isn't rolling in his grave somewhere.

"Just because you weren't on the best terms with him doesn't mean you have to despise whatever he did," she tells him, her nose stuck in a book she's read over and over. "Don't stop saving people out of spite."

And it's that expression, 'saving people', what makes him smile a bit too fondly. It's been a month and a half. He'd be dead in any other world, yet she's let him live in this one. He's grateful enough to keep letting her visit him. He's proud enough to prove that he can become someone great, even in this place.

[6. wasn't my name you wanted]

"I never could compete," she tells him, five months later. It's his six months anniversary, but that's not the only thing they're celebrating. She's been promoted to Jounin, and he's had his viewing with the Hokage today to be accepted as her trainee—only in the medical area. The woman still scares him, like an older Matsumoto, but more intimidating; but he realises he's in her good graces, because Sakura likes him.

"Can't compete with what?" he asks, playing with the switch of his bedside lamp. He wonders if it'll become their tradition, to get drunk on his bedroom floor ever month on the dot.

"Your girl," she answers. "I'm a woman of action now," she says, snorting a bit at herself. "I'll be out a lot. And you want...you want some cute girl that you can look after every day, and save and stuff. And I can't compete with that."

"Who said you had anyone to compete against?" he asks, his voice low and suggestive.

She snorts, and shrugs, and lays down on the cold floor. "Oh please. It took me three years to get over Sasuke. You've barely been away from her six months."

He wants to tell her that she's wrong, but he doesn't get the chance, because she falls asleep. He keeps the answer to himself.

[7. engraved into my soul]

"I think you're the only friend I have here," he tells her. It's been a year, and he only remembers the names because they're carved into his bedroom wall. The only name he can associate with a face, the only one he remembers, the only one that seems to matter is _Sakura, Sakura, Sakura_. And she's not even part of his world.

"Maybe you should stop calling me Haruno-san, then," she tells him, and kicks him lightly under the table. She smiles a bit more often these days. Maybe it's the atmosphere at work.

"That would be disrespectful. As your intern," he starts.

"That's only half of the day," she interrupts, waving him off. Sometimes he forgets he's the older one here, by a year and a half. "You can call me Sakura during lunch, you know."

He likes the way she smiles when she teases him. "Sakura," he acknowledges, and realises that she's a part of him even if she's not part of his world. Sometimes, it feels like she _is_ his world.

[8. could you say it louder]

"You know, I read this book about a medic-nin," she tells him one day, when they're in the locker-rooms, changing. "She sleeps with her intern."

Ishida splutters, halting his movements—shirt half-way zipped up—and staring at her like she's gone mad. Or gone sane.

"And they have fun," she adds. "And they live happily ever after."

"That only happens in novels," he speaks too soon, and mentally hits himself for it.

"Worth the try," she sighs, and takes off her shirt. He sputters again, flushed red and wondering if she thinks he's one of her girl friends, too. "I'd like a dragon on this one," she tells him, handing him the shirt.

He takes it quietly, and watches how she pulls a spare one out of her locker, pulls it on and grins at him. "Sakura," he starts.

"When you grow a brain," she tells him. "Look for me."

[9. better with you than without]

He spends two nights sewing a Chinese dragon onto her shirt. He carefully selects the colour of the thread, the design; he makes sure it looks perfect, fierce. He thinks about her the whole time he sews it, and he thinks about him marking her in this way.

When he's done, he goes to deliver it to her apartment. Thankfully, she's alone, and thankfully, they both have the day off. He pushes the shirt gently into her hands, and closes the door behind them. He watches her admire his work with a large grin, and follows her into her bedroom, uninvited, when she says she'll try it on.

"I love it that you use zippers," he tells her, stepping behind her. She tenses up, and he knows she could break all his bones in two minutes, but she lets him wrap her arms around her waist and turn her around to face him. "Sakura," he whispers her name, and unzips her shirt, sliding it off her shoulders.

"You grew a brain," she says, smiling widely as she wraps her arms around his shoulders.

"You would deserve a better man," he murmurs, leaning down to kiss her shoulder. "But I'm too selfish right now."

"Oh. Good," she says, pulling his mouth in for a kiss.

[10. you dress like a girl and act like a man]

She's the stronger pillar. He knows this, even though it's taken him a year and some weeks to realise it. He should have known, though, the minute he fell on top of her, that she'd continue to be his knight in shining armor for a long time. At first, he'd tried to shake her off—the more he'd tried, the more she stuck around.

It occurs to him that she knows him too well. It's frightening how well she knows when to tell him what to know and when to be quiet and let him talk. It's frightening to see how he always listens.

In another world, he was the hero. In this one, he saves lives—one flu vaccine at a time. If she had landed in his world, he knows she would have still been the stronger pillar. He despises feeling weak, but he loves her for not forgetting that, away from this place, he is a Quincy.

She tells him she loves him for letting her be who she is, and still trying to sew her pretty clothes anyway—he knows there's more to it. It's in the way she looks at him, in the way she always has.

Every month, she helps him carve the names into his bedroom wall, and get drunk until he's ripping off her clothes with his own teeth. She calls him 'Quincy' and he calls her 'Sakura', and shows her that she has no-one to compete against. That there is only her.

It's the strangest thing that's ever happened. But they've both been through worse and lived to tell the tale; this is just another step.


End file.
